In tune with Tom

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Stewart D'Arrietta says music is like a mistress. "It's incredibly sexy, incredibly evoking, it's very hard to give it up."Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

Stewart D'Arrietta draws on the highs and lows of his
own life in his tribute to the legendary Tom Waits. By Guy
Blackman.

It's a small, darkened room filled with music fans, but there's
no haze of cigarette smoke in the air. The piano may have been
drinking, but it must have been backstage, because alcohol is
banned at this venue. The man sitting at the piano wears a white
suit and a pork pie hat, growling out the lyrics to songs that
alternate between the sentimental and the decidedly surreal - but
it's not Tom Waits. It's Stewart D'Arrietta in Tom Waits For No
Man, a cabaret-style tribute to the work of the husky
Californian auteur, who since 1973 has released nearly 20 albums of
increasingly unique, confounding genius.

"Initially it was his lyrical content," says the affable, rakish
D'Arrietta of what first appealed to him about Waits' music. "It
started in the late '70s, when a friend of mine turned me on to
(Waits' sixth album) Blue Valentine, and a song on it
called Kentucky Avenue. When I was a kid growing up, a
mate of mine was in a wheelchair, and that song is about two kids
getting up to mischief, and you realise at the end of the song that
the guy wants to basically wave a wand over his friend so he can
come out of his chair. There were many times when I and my mates
felt the same way, so Tom Waits' lyrics really touched me."

In his show, D'Arrietta draws on the highs and lows of his own
life to infuse these lyrics with personal significance. "I do his
version of Somewhere (from West Side Story)," he
says, "and that song relates to me 'cause I was listening to it a
lot when my son -" he pauses. "I had a son who died, it was kind of
a tragic experience."

D'Arrietta's son Duke was born in 1989, but only lived for one
day. "I went into a massive depression that lasted for two and a
half years," says D'Arrietta, who also has a 17-year-old daughter,
Roma. "But then I began to deal with it spiritually. It got me
thinking about life after death for the first time."

Thankfully, not all of his experiences have been so harrowing.
"I tell people about my trip to LA," he says, "where I was caught
on Lincoln Boulevard and I had to get a manicure to use the
telephone, because I couldn't find a public phone to ring a
cab."

D'Arrietta has a musical pedigree almost as extensive as that of
Waits, to the point that he reveals his age only in grudging
increments. "I was born a long time ago," he says. "I was born in
the late '50s, so yeah I'm in my late 40s. Well, I'm 50. OK, 51 -
I'm 51 years old!"

At the age of seven, he started piano lessons with a one-armed
nun (now that sounds like something Waits would sing about), but
Brisbane-born D'Arrietta didn't really appear on the Australian
musical radar until he was in his early 30s. He released a solo
album in 1985 before forming the Big Storm, which released
Living In Exile in 1988.

Neither record had much commercial impact. "In retrospect I'm
not surprised at all," says D'Arrietta, "because that's the nature
of the corporate world. Anybody going into the record industry
thinking it's all pats on the back and handshakes up front . . .
well, it's boots up the ass at the end!"

D'Arrietta's biggest break came in the early '90s, when he met
actor John Waters, who was mulling over the idea of a show based on
the work of John Lennon. The two hit it off, and D'Arrietta became
co-creator and musical director of Looking Through A Glass
Onion, which packed Australian theatres regularly throughout
the '90s, even surviving a three-month stint in London's West End
in 1995.

D'Arrietta has since staged a two-actor musical
Satango, reunited with Waters for the short-lived
rock'n'roll-themed Reunion, and produced works for other
performers, including Jackie Weaver's current play The Blonde,
The Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead.

It seems music has been an all-consuming passion in
D'Arrietta's life - even at the expense of two marriages. "Music is
like your mistress, it draws on you all the time," he says. "It's
incredibly sexy, incredibly evoking, it's very hard to give it up.
But I'm friends with both of my wives - I love them."

In a way, it's sad that a man in such restless pursuit of his
musical "mistress" has found his greatest success interpreting the
works of other songwriters. But then again, achieving any kind of
ongoing musical career in Australia is no mean feat. That
D'Arrietta has survived as a performer and musician for 20 years is
a testament to great tenacity and adaptability. "Music is
definitely a hard way to make a living," he says. "It's a great
living, but there's not a lot of it. But I've had a pretty good
life with it, and I can't ever complain. I've lead a very rich
life, and I intend to have a still richer life."

Stewart D'Arrietta's Tom Waits For No Man is at
Chapel Off Chapel (Prahran) until May 1. Tickets 8290
7000.